An Arsenal blog bringing you news, opinion and humour on a daily basis. Well, I'll try at the very least…

I’ve some peculiar writing habits. Occasionally I wonder how you all envisage the creation of these posts. Perhaps you imagine me to be sat in a smoking jacket, delicately cradling a sniffer of brandy whilst I scribe my thoughts draped in moonlight. Alternatively, you could choose to picture me typing leisurely whilst Scarlet Johansson feeds me grapes and gives me a back massage. As much as the thought of the latter pleases me, neither are true.

When putting down my blathery notions, I have to listen to music – currently ‘Excommunication’ by Erkka – I have to have a delicious cup of tea with biscuits and I prefer to be completely naked. Well… depending on the weather. If that hasn’t given you a wonderful mental image to continue into the news with, nothing will…

Rumours are aplenty. “But James, what is this madness of which you talk?” I hear you collectively roar. Well, folks, there’s this odd thing called ‘The January Transfer Window’ occurring at present; it’s a window that opens in January allowing Clubs to purchase and trade players. You may have heard of it before, although, it rarely gains coverage in the media.

Mirko Vucinic is a player being linked with us quite frequently at present. The Juventus forward has slipped down the pecking order in Turin and quite a few of the outlets that report speculative tales see Arsenal making a bid as iminent. The Montenegrin forward is 30-years-old and would surely been seen as a temporary addition until we go cash crazy over the summer. Speaking after the Fulham win, Arsene moved quickly to pour cold water on such hokum:

“We are looking at potential possibilities for us to get someone in, but we are not especially in for Vucinic

“Some people have visual capacities that I don’t have.

“We are not on any special case.

“I would love to announce something that would excite you and me, but I don’t have the possibility to do it.“

The trouble with denying reports is that no one cares to believe you. Arsene has never been known to out-right declare his intentions to the media, and because of this any truthful denial of an approach is considered a smokescreen. Folks are so hungry for something, anything, to happen that they invariably chose to believe exactly what they want to believe.

I’ve said we need a striker on a few occasions – ‘need’ perhaps being too strong a word, maybe ‘require’ or ‘could do with’ are better examples – and I stand by that claim. Olivier Giroud is a player I like, but when you take a moment to look at the striking options of our direct rivals for the title, you could say they have a plentiful bounty of potential attackers, whilst we really only have 2, and one of them is Nicklas Bendtner. I don’t think it’s outlandish to suggest another face upfront would be very welcome. As it stands, I’d love Julian Draxler, but I fear we may have to wait until the summer for that one. Loans for the short-term are what I see Arsene doing, if anything at all. We shall see.

At the present, I cannot get my head around Arsenal playing on a Friday. It just strikes me as wrong. I know that in these climes money controls everything about football coverage and that impacts on tradition. But there should most certainly be a strong desire to retain tradition as is represents the people who make football what it is; the fans. The FA should be ashamed of themselves allowing their most prestigious Cup competition to be sullied by something as egregious as the pursuit of money. By all means have your sponsors and your dreary pundits on BT Sport spewing feckless drivel, but don’t do so at the cost of the people who regularly attend matches and pay good money to do so.

Regarding the fixture itself, it is stated that Coventry City’s fans will be staging two protests during the game to highlight a few of their current displeasures. All the power in the world to them for that, and even as a self-confessed ‘Armchair’ supporter who doesn’t get to games with anything like the frequency he’d like, I’d give all my respect to anyone working to change things for the better within their Club.

Supporter groups can be a mixed bag. Some want change for the better, others can find their beliefs lost behind a glass screen of self-involved bleating and misinformation. A lot is made of them across the internet, and it’s a debate I keep myself away from. I’m a fan, I love my team and the fortunes of Arsenal means a great deal to me. What I’m not is a season ticket holder shelling out my hard-earned cash to follow my team across the world. I’d love to be, but I’m not. You’ll never hear me state one variety of fan is better than the other because that kind of talk is reserved for elitists drunk on their own deluded sense of importance. However, there are different types of fan, and it’s always best to be honest about which one you are. That’s why you’ll not see me getting involved.

That’s all for today, folks. The comments await you all below, so get your fingers into typing mode and let me have a few of your thoughts to digest. I will try to reply to as many as I can, but it’s often not that simple. I appreciate all of them, though. Tomorrow I shall return with more stuff – not sure what about, but I’ll think of something.

As always; thanks for reading, you beautiful bastards.

I thought I’d finish today with this little beauty of a picture doing the rounds on twitter featuring Santi Cazorla and Robert Pires. Fabulous.